The Pathfinder's scorched hull stood as a testament to the vulnerability of the line. The fire on the permanent way had proven that the Coal-Lords were willing to destroy the very infrastructure the Empire relied upon to maintain their fading monopoly. But as the Oakhaven & Western Railway expanded from a single track to a complex network of sidings and spurs, Deacon faced a danger far more consistent than sabotage: human error.
"We had two near-misses at the Cleft switch this morning," Miller reported, his hands shaking as he laid out a series of crumpled signal logs. "One operator thought the mail-train had passed, and he threw the points for a coal-shunting engine. If the mail-driver hadn't seen the lantern in time, we'd be digging forty men out of a twisted heap of iron."
The "gritty realism" of early railroading was that it was a system of massive kinetic energy controlled by fallible memories. At every junction, a "Points-Man" stood by a heavy iron lever, manually switching the rails. If he was tired, drunk, or distracted by the cold, the result was a catastrophe.
"We can't rely on the 'Points-Man' to remember the schedule," Deacon said, looking at the crude wooden levers. "We need to remove the possibility of a mistake. We need Mechanical Interlocking."
Deacon retreated to the foundry's precision-shop. He spent three weeks designing the Interlocking Frame—a massive machine of sliding steel bars and notched cams that acted as a mechanical logic gate.
"The principle is simple," Deacon explained to the skeptical junction-masters. "The levers are physically connected by a locking bed. If the signal for the main line is set to 'Clear,' the frame physically locks the lever for the siding. You cannot throw the points into the path of an oncoming train because the machine won't let you. It's a physical manifestation of an 'IF-THEN' statement."
While Deacon worked on the logic of the rails, a different kind of friction was building in the barracks. The Line-Riders—the men who patrolled the tracks and repaired the wires—had gathered in the mud outside the command center. They weren't holding tools; they were holding a list of demands.
"We signed up to ride the wire, Sergeant, not to drive through alchemical hell-fire!" Hallow, the council representative, shouted. "Three men are in the infirmary with lung-scorch from the Cleft fire. The Coal-Lords are offering 'gold-bounties' for every Oakhaven head brought to the South. We want 'Hazard Pay,' and we want it in gold, not your Labor Notes."
Deacon stepped out onto the balcony, looking down at the men. He saw the genuine fear in their eyes. The "Iron-Road" had become a front line, and his workers were the infantry.
"Gold is what the Coal-Lords use to buy your fear," Deacon called down, his voice echoing off the iron roof of the station. "I won't pay you in a currency that devalues our work. But I will do this: every Line-Rider will be issued an Armored Wickham Trolley. You won't be riding horses into the fire; you'll be riding iron."
He didn't just promise it; he showed them the prototype. It was a small, four-wheeled platform driven by a two-cylinder steam engine, shielded with thick boiler-plate and equipped with a front-mounted swivel-gun for high-pressure steam-blasts. It was a "Rail-Scout," designed to lead the trains and clear the tracks of saboteurs.
The promise of the Wickhams and the installation of the Interlocking Frames stabilized the line, but it added another layer of cost to the Oakhaven ledger. The "Logistical Insight" warned Deacon that they were becoming "Over-Capitalized." They were spending so much on the security and logic of the line that the profit from the grain and iron was being swallowed by the infrastructure itself.
To offset the cost, Deacon introduced the Standardized Time-Table. Up until now, Oryn-West and Oakhaven kept time by their own local sun-dials, often differing by ten or fifteen minutes.
"From today," Deacon announced, installing a massive, spring-driven master clock in the station, "the entire line runs on Railway Time. We coordinate the clocks by telegraph every morning. A minute in the valley is a minute at the coast. If we can't save money, we'll save time. And time is the only thing the Coal-Lords can't manufacture."
The introduction of "Railway Time" felt like another theft to the traditionalists. The Church complained that Oakhaven was "standardizing the heavens," and the local farmers grumbled that the "Iron Lord" was trying to control the sun. But for the first time, the Pathfinder and its sister engines moved with a terrifying, clockwork efficiency.
The Coal-Lords struck again at the end of the month, attempting to bribe a signalman to bypass the interlocking frame. The man tried to force the lever, but the steel bar Deacon had designed held firm. The machine refused to allow the error. The saboteur was caught by a patrolling Wickham before he could even draw his tools.
The "Logic of the Lever" had won the second round of the rail-war. But as Deacon watched the Pathfinder pull out of the station exactly at 08:00 Railway Time, he knew the next move wouldn't be on the tracks. The Coal-Lords were losing the engineering battle, which meant they would take the fight to the Imperial Patent Office in Solstice, seeking to declare "Standardized Time" and "Interlocking Logic" as Crown Property.